The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-11-05
CHARACTER OF THE MEN.

CHARACTER OF TIE MEN.
They Are of the Commonplace Variety. Mar
row-Minded and GIib-Tongued.
Chicago Letter in New York sun.
No one Of the condemned men has at any time
in his life shown degree of mental, moral, or
physical courage. Surely it required no courage
to make. in secret, the destructive bomb, and it
will not be pretended that it required any de-
gree of any kind of courage TO throw, in secret
a bomb among a crowd Of men, women and
children, several Of whom were killed, and many
manned and mangled to the present day.
In accordance with the good old American
custom, these men have been lionized from the
day of their arraignment Flowers. sweetmeats.
notes, poems. and all manner of tributes from
the silly have been laid at their feet. I shall
never forget the spectacle presented by beau
tiful maiden who passed, during recess in
to this, that, and the other man charged
with the heinous crime of muir
der The calm conceit. the self-suffciency.
the exaggerated estimate of each personality
made each its impression upon me, and. doubt
less, upon every careful observer in that court
room Every man, according to his mental
traits sat there as th ough in a continuity of the
photograpbing process. Each felt that the
eyes of the civilized world were upon him: each
read daily, descriptions of his personality, and
long before the rocking chair jury presented to
the judge, who sat like masculine oasis in a
perfect wilderness of femininity, their verdict
and their sentence, these men were absolutely
and uncontrovertibly convinced that they were
each aud every one well-developed hero.
From that hour down to this morning, when
the braZen tongue of clamorous time rang out
the noon-day hour. that feeling was encouraged,
enhanced, and multitudinously emphasized,
that cIean-cut photograph of their interior
would unquestionabiy disclose mass, not to
say a mess, of self-conceit and self-suffciency
unequaled in the personalities of any other sew
seventy times seven men the face OF
the globe.
The American public has been fed ad narseam
with sensational stuff about these men. They
have been pictured as lofty, broad, keen-eyed
men of gentle mold They have been sent
forth silvery phrase gentlemen of leisure,
who have kindly come from foreign shores to
teach the hardy sons of the Western wilds how
to live, and move and enjoy their being. If one
might believe the current literature of the times
they above the ordinary level of intelligence,
men devoted to the furtherance of an idea. men
whose sympathies encirce the globe, and whose
humanitarianism is widely horiZoned. AS a
matter of fact, they commonplace people.
They not men, with exception, who
have earned their bread by the sweat of their
brows. They known throughout the
length and breadth OF this magnificent State,
and especially in the upheaved streets OF this
imperial city, as professional agitators, pro-
fessional workingmen, who protessed. however.
much more than they worked. They are glib
bitter. pre- JUDGED, and full of the petty intrigue
which finally eliminated in this Internal illus
tration of the possibilities of socialism when
pushed to the last degree of anarchy.
1t must be said In reference to Parsons, who
lie the one American among them, and of Spies,
that while they were professed workingmen.
they really did some intellectual labor in the
conduct of labor papers, but they never attained
the plane of dignity or pure intellectually
which Schwab stood and stands by reason of his
nervous organization and the nicely of his
brainy appreciation of situations They were
not in any true sense of the term intellectual
leaders They never could be- Schwab might
he intellectual leader in the realm of alleged
prophecy, in the realm of Utopia.
II would interest, am sure, the people of the
world if they could scalp the citizenship of this
great State and note the absolute feeling with
which these men regarded. You see il is
some time since the crime. It Is near.y two
years-a long time, in which, Rip Van
Wrinkle would remark, Being gone, we are
easily forgotten" The names of the policemen
who were killed. the names of the men, women
and children who were manned and injured
are forgotten, and have been swept away by
the stream of time and covered by the mul-
titudinous happenings and incidents since
then. All that remains is this spectacle of seven
men facing the inevitable gallows. Is there any
regretf Oh, indeed, much, but not in their
breasts There is yet TO be formulated a sem
tence of sorrow for the deed so far as they are
concerned. There is yet to be printed one soli
occurred when and as it did. The people of the
State, the people of the city, the associates of
the police. the families of the manned and
wounded-yes, in their breasts is much regret:
but the men who caused the trouble have, as
say yet to phrase the first sentence indicating
sorrow, much less repentance. What then, is
the feeling2 The feeling is of universal
sorrow for these men, and individual sympathy
for them as persons, because it is not
believed that any of them actually
threw the bomb, actually killed the men ac-
tualy manned the men, women, and children;
but there is also good. square. solid desire
that the people of the world IN general, and of
this country in particular, may see that Illinois
deals with criminals of all descriptions and par
ticularly with this class of dangerous criminals.
by legal methods, all fours, with justice, and
not until every possible feasible. approaehable,
technical. if you will, objection has been met
and satisfied.